Played some more paintball yesterday, more accurately woodsball.  After a long drought of non-play, we’ve been able to play twice in three weeks and even managed to pick up a couple new players.  The player pool is probably over a dozen at this point, which should make it easier to get 7-8 guys to play at any one time. 

My highlights (and lowlights) of yesterday include:

• crawling on my stomach for 200+ ft. to sneak up on Jay.
• Running the remaining 100ft to ambush him, only to be unable to stop (damn boots!) and landing in the gully next to him.  I also didn’t hear the yells for me to surrender until I landed next to him.  I surrendered.
• Getting shot by my dad about 3 seconds after surrendering.  He was on my team.  That’ll teach me to ever surrender again, I suppose.
• A long range shot to hit John on the ass as he was hiding from a teammate in another direction.
• Chasing after Jay in our last match and finally landing one on his shoulder as he was asking his teammates if he had some paint on him.

All in all it was a good outing; I ended up with 3 or 4 kills.  Today I sure am sore though, between diving onto my knees, crawling, and general running and jumping in boots, my legs are killing me.

Go Cardinals!

Ana, myself, Dave and Josh went to Game 4 of the NLDS last night.  The umpires sucked – from our seats approximately 3,997 rows back from home plate and 35,000 feet in the air, we could clearly see the terrible ball and strike calls.  The pitching wasn’t very crisp but the Cardinals pulled it out and are now headed to New York to play the Mets.

It looks like we’re getting an early Fall this year, and I love it.  I’ve come to realize that my favorite time of the year is autumn, and I don’t really know why.  The most tangible part is the cool, crisp air that just seems relaxing; but there’s something else that I just can’t put my finger on.

Here’s a list of things that might contribute, if you have other suggestions then leave a comment.  I’d really like to be able to pinpoint this if possible, so please help:

* cool, crisp air

* bonfires/campfires

* playoff baseball (..come on Cardinals, get your act together)

* colorful leaves

* tailgating

* lack of bugs (great for astronomy)

* lower humidity

I just purchased Sugar Free Maple and Brown Sugar oatmeal.  There are no Splenda logos on the box and nothing to indicate what type of sweetener was used.  My only guess is one of the long scientific words on the back indicates “sugar substitute”.  Its not all that bad and actually pretty good for you nutrition wise.  I will just have to put the mystery behind me and eat it. 

Where did the weekend go?

Yesterday David and Libby Rasch stopped in for a visit.  I can’t believe it has been over 2 years since last seeing them, we need to make sure another 2 doesn’t go by before the next time.  It was great seeing you two!
Sunday evening took us to the Peoria Civic Center to see a Brian Regan performance.   The ride to Peoria was a little stressful – I wasn’t allowed to bring my laptop and we were running (in my opinion) late.  In liu of coding in the car, I had to resort to hosting a rousing game of “Name that Price” of items in the Sunday newspaper ads.  Everyone enjoyed it (I think) and it kept me from going insane without something to do for an hour.  After much distress over the time, we arrived a whopping 8 minutes before the start.  It turned out to be hilarious and worth every penny – I’d definitely go to another one.

A smoking ban went into effect this past Sunday for public facilities in Springfield.  A lot of people are up in arms about not being able to exercise their freedom and fill the air with toxic chemicals that harm people, but a lot more are happy that they can go to a restaurant without having to breathe toxic chemicals that harm people 🙂

A co-worker (and friend… I guesss) of mine, Justin Long,  said that his home away from home, Spammy’s Tavern is having a rough go of it without all of the smoke.  So rough, in fact, that they just purchased a large flat panel television to show how much money they’ll be losing because of the ban.  What a shame.  I feel for them.  Really, I do.

Using my new Photoshop Elements, I changed the style of the Chef website(no content there yet) to match the application: